The Windmill Sentries

By Lindsey Hanson

The prevailing rumor, for many years, was that Golden Gate Park’s first windmill, Old Dutch, was gifted to the city by the Queen of the Netherlands. The tulip garden that explodes into a constellation of colors is called the Queen Wilhelmina Tulip Garden, planted at the windmill’s base in 1961 and named in 1962. However, that is where the connection between Old Dutch and Dutch royalty ends.

When civil engineer William Hammond Hall was designing Golden Gate Park, he was told repeatedly that there was absolutely no way the desolate sand dunes could ever be suited for Victorians’ Sunday strolls. Hall had learned various methods of sand dune reclamation from his experience with the Army Corps of Engineers, and was convinced otherwise. He first planted barley, then small native plants like lupine, and finally trees. To prevent the park from being reclaimed by the sand and sea he needed an irrigation system. Soon after, Hall was appointed Golden Gate Park’s first superintendent in 1871.

The first irrigation system was supplied with water from Spring Valley Water Company, which was gouging the city on the price of water. At the edge of Golden Gate Park, where the Great Highway now runs, is a natural aquifer. Park commissioners eventually decided it would be financially prudent to discontinue their contract with Spring Valley. In 1902, they began taking bids from contractors to build a windmill to pump water throughout the park from the aquifer.

Residing near the northwestern end of the park, the Dutch windmill was completed in 1903, its vanes spinning magnificently in the winds off the Pacific. The strong summer winds, however, proved too vigorous, and the vanes had to be reefed by a quarter of their length soon after their inauguration. Old Dutch – as it has been affectionately dubbed over the years – supplied water for the entire western end of the park beyond the Chain of Lakes. By 1907, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Old Dutch was pumping over 890,000 gallons of water each day.

The success of the first windmill prompted Samuel Green Murphy, San Francisco’s First National Bank president, to donate $20,000 for the construction of a second windmill. Construction began in 1905 at the southwestern end of Golden Gate Park. By 1907, the Park Commission had decided to name the new windmill after its benefactor. Murphy Windmill was completed that same year, and on April 11, 1908, the Park Commissioners went together to start the great vanes spinning and the water pumping.

The windmills required constant supervision and maintenance. The Park Commissioners had small brick cottages built to house millwrights, who tended to the daily upkeep of the windmills. The first cottage was built for the Dutch windmill’s millwright in 1903, and the second was built behind Murphy windmill in 1909. The millwrights’ work was demanding and often dangerous.

On April 6, 1906, 38-year-old millwright and Norwegian immigrant, John L. Hansen, fell from Old Dutch’s guidemill platform onto the main platform whilst trying to secure the vanes for the night. The men of the nearby Lifesaving Station saw the vanes spinning at an hour when they were typically inactive, and rushed to the windmill to find Hansen moaning on the platform. They carefully carried Hansen into his cottage and placed him on the kitchen floor. One of the lifesavers ran to fetch an ambulance; it arrived with Dr. Lawlor, just as Hansen’s wife, Mary, returned home after collecting her husband’s monthly wages. In the fall, Hansen’s skull was fractured, his ribs were crushed, and he had sustained a compound fracture to his right leg. The millwright died soon after his wife and the doctor arrived. The next day, Park Commissioners Metson, Lloyd, Spreckels, and Dingee donated $100 each to widow Mary Hansen.

The millwright that followed Hansen was Swedish immigrant Carl Augustus Heliodor Hammarstrom, the son of a sea captain. Known as Heliodor or “Hammie,” he studied art at the Mark Hopkins Institute and privately with painter and sculptor Gottardo Piazzoni. His work was exhibited at the San Francisco Art Association and the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. Hammarstrom’s first job in San Francisco was as a streetcar conductor. He would discreetly sketch his riders in between taking tickets and making change. The 1906 earthquake demolished his studio and home, and for a short while he lived in a tent near the Cliff House. When he accepted the position as millwright that same year, he moved into the millwright’s cottage at the foot of Old Dutch.

Hammarstrom raised seven children in the little stone cottage. When his daughter Winifred’s engagement was announced in the newspapers, Hammarstrom said, “It isn’t many children that have the Pacific ocean for a front yard and a 1000-acre park for their back yard…I’ve raised seven of ‘em out here at the windmill, and I’ve gotten rid of all of ‘em except this one [Winifred] and another girl. And she’ll probably be leaving me soon, too, but that’s the way it goes. Life’s just like that old windmill there.”1

The Chronicle featured an article on Hammarstrom, singing his praises: “Bossing a windmill requires a sailorman… Engineers aplenty have sought the job as windmill boss, but have balked when they learned that a part of the job is to scale the mighty wings to furl sails…It’s dangerous work, too, when the wind is snoring and a scramble aloft is vital lest a gale carry away sails and frame. If you think Heliodor has a snap, try some day to climb to the tip of a windmill wing that trembles exactly 102 feet from the ground.”2

Even with his millwright and parenting duties, Hammarstrom seemed to have time to help others. When young Ellis Mallery, a geologist, and Laura Clark, a student, came by train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, they had already made plans to thwart Clark’s aunt and guardian and find some beautiful outdoor location to elope. On Christmas Day 1913 the two lovebirds took a taxi ride through Golden Gate Park. When they came upon Old Dutch, Clark was taken by the beauty, and as a devotee of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s work, she believed they had found the perfect place. Clark later explained, “Every little nook and glen looked so inviting. But suddenly we came upon Mr. Hammarstrom’s dear little brick cottage under the trees, and we knew he could help us. It was just the sort of a cottage Emerson lived in, I know.”3

Hammarstrom volunteered the windmill for the couple’s nuptials and loaned Clark a phone book, to look for a clergyman. Clark stopped at Reverend Frank W. Emerson, who by chance was related to the famed philosopher- writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Hammarstrom went off and commandeered the reverend, and Clark phoned her sister to hurry down to the edge of the sea from the Palace Hotel, where the group had been lodging. Once everyone arrived, Hammarstrom agreed to be best man, and the couple were married on the balcony of Old Dutch with the salty Pacific air swirling about them.

In 1921, the American Legion hosted an event at Old Dutch to raise money for unemployed veterans, following the Great War. The event called for daredevils willing to strap themselves to the tip of one of the windmill’s massive vanes and go around in a full circle. The prize, for any soul brave enough, was a $1 box of candy. From tip to tip the vanes spanned 150 feet.

One young adventurous woman, Velma Tilden, took up the challenge. She was known to a wide circle of friends as “an expert swimmer and a taker of dares for many a thrilling stunt on sea or land.”4 Tilden also bred rabbits, in order to supply herself with enough fur to create a faux-ermine coat and hat. She then piloted a patented “Water Walker,” consisting of two pontoons slid into a ramshackle wooden frame. Her goal was to cross the bay via Water Walker, but the tides prevented her from completing that particular mission.

Regarding her windmill stunt, Tilden said that her stole and hat remained secure throughout her passage. Not to be outdone by any other potential risk takers, Tilden spun around the mill 25 times! With each turn she went up nearly 200 feet into the air, and around a full circle of more than 660 feet at every turn. She told the Chronicle that it was the dare, and not the 25 boxes of candy, that motivated her.

In 1913, the city had installed the first electric motor, which assisted the water pump on the days when Old Dutch was not visited by westerly gales. By 1935 both Old Dutch and Murphy windmill were rendered obsolete by electric motors, and in 1936 Hammarstrom put in his notice to retire. Metal and other parts of the windmills were later used for scrap to assist in the World War II effort. After his 20-year tenure as Old Dutch’s millwright, Hammarstrom said that he planned on spending more time with his grandchildren.

Hammarstrom took a job as a park gardener but continued to live in the millwright’s cottage for a spell. He then moved into a little tent and allowed his son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren to remain in the cottage. The tent could have very well been the same tent that provided him shelter after the 1906 earthquake.

Today, Heliodor’s grandson, vintage circus historian and writer David Lewis Hammarstrom, reminisces about his grandfather’s warm hands that held his when they walked to Playland-at-the-Beach. Heliodor would treat his grandchildren to salt water taffy, popcorn, or It’s-Its. David would bring his grandfather a cup of Ovaltine every morning and poke around the tent, marveling at the treasures within. He once watched his grandfather sketching and was fortunate to be the recipient of some of the drawings, but after Heliodor moved out of the little brick cottage, he ceased to paint. His family is in possession of some of his paintings and others have been sold by auction houses.

David remarked that, “of his paintings that I grew up to love the most was of the windmill in a soft darkening sunset. My mother willed it to me…Grandpa would live for another 20 years, evidently without ever holding in his hand another paint brush. To this day, I see my favorite of his paintings on my wall…Maybe the restful and moody blues that rule it are the reason why blue is my favorite color.”5

Born the same year as the completion of Old Dutch, Eleanor Rossi Crabtree became its savior later in life. Her father was Angelo Rossi, San Francisco’s mayor from 1933-1944. Crabtree contracted polio when she was very young, and couldn’t walk for seven years. Her father would take her in his “horseless carriage” through the park, and stop to watch the windmills. Of those outings, Crabtree later recalled: “Oh, those windmills, moving so effortlessly in the wind, were my special joy. It was a heavenly sight, with those sails going around above the cypresses and the ocean in the background…It’s such a disgrace that we’ve let these noble structures, built at the turn of the century, come to this sorry state.”6

Crabtree’s quest to save the windmills began around 1960. She started by asking for small donations, collecting $1 and $5 bills to put toward a restoration fund. By 1970, she became the chairman of the Windmill Restoration Committee and had raised $45,000, including money from city supervisor (and later judge) Jack Ertola for an Urban Beautification grant. Throughout the decade, Crabtree sent hundreds of letters asking for donations toward the restoration fund. Her husband, Allison Crabtree, was tasked with licking and stamping envelopes. Allison also happened to be the grandnephew of Charlotte “Lotta” Crabtree, the “Golden Girl” of the stage and donor and namesake of Lotta’s Fountain on Market Street.

By 1976, Crabtree recruited U.S. Navy Seabee Mobile Battalion no 2 Reserve Unit, from Treasure Island, to volunteer time and labor to Old Dutch’s restoration. The Seabees soon began to call the project “their baby,” and in total volunteered one week a month for three years. Tragically, on April 19, 1980, Seabee Robert W. Carroll – who was also a full-time journeyman electrician with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 551 in Santa Rosa – fell to his death while helping to restore Old Dutch. A plaque was placed at the foot of the windmill in his memory.

Crabtree was active in several organizations, including San Francisco Beautiful and the Women’s Chamber of Commerce. But she became known as “The Windmill Lady” at City Hall, because of her tireless efforts to persuade city officials to fund the restoration. Crabtree was hellbent on seeing the vanes spin yet again. She told the Chronicle: “If it hadn’t been for those windmills, we wouldn’t have a park…I feel it’s just as important to retain open spaces for recreation as it is to build tennis courts. To be a good citizen you can’t just take. You have to give, too.”7

During the energy crisis of the 1970s, Crabtree promulgated the use of wind energy in the city, believing that the windmills would pay for themselves if they were restored to their former glory and allowed to create energy. “In time, the windmills could start pumping water again. Why, it would more than pay for itself in new energy and as a tourist attraction…I’ll never rest until I see them going again. But I need help. I’m just afraid I won’t live long enough.”8

As luck would have it, Crabtree did indeed live long enough to see Old Dutch’s vanes spin again. The San Francisco Citizens Commission for Restoration of the Golden Gate Park Windmills, with Crabtree at the helm, raised $117,000 and another $107,000 from various federal and local agencies. With the funds and years of labor that the Seabees donated, the vanes on Old Dutch were released on November 14, 1981, in a ceremony to honor the windmill’s restoration and Crabtree’s perseverance. David Warren’s Playland Research Center – which hosted parties in Playland’s rubble, along with Playland archives and ephemera – provided pink champagne to celebrate the occasion.

What Eleanor Rossi Crabtree was to Old Dutch, Don Propstra was to Murphy windmill. Propstra grew up in Vancouver, Washington, where his grandfather, a Dutch immigrant, and then his father, owned a butter company called The Holland. After college, Propstra ventured to the Bay Area in the 1970s to find his own way, and though he left his family behind in Vancouver, he took with him a deep love and appreciation for his Dutch ancestry.

Settling in San Francisco, Propstra and his partner raised three children. In the late 1990s, Propstra and his children were in Golden Gate Park when he came upon the dilapidated Murphy windmill. He thought of his children’s investment in their Dutch heritage, and the Salmon Run Belltower and glockenspiel in Vancouver’s Propstra Square (named after his father). Don had designed the tower to honor his father and create a beautiful marker for his hometown. The tower’s Dutch clarion bells salute the family’s Dutch heritage.

Propstra went to the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department to ask about the restoration of the windmill. Learning that it was not a priority, he gathered a team of dedicated volunteers to form the Campaign to Save the Golden Gate Park Windmills. Mark De Jong, a local Dutch contractor, committed to helping with the restoration. A Dutch woman, Hendrika “Henny” Neys, was an early key contributor. Patricia Costello, whose grandfather had supplied the original lumber for Murphy windmill, joined the Steering Committee. Propstra and a couple others were allowed to go inside Murphy windmill. They had to wear hazmat suits, and it was filled with pigeons, ravens, bats, and their excrement, and holes and rot could be seen throughout. “If you blew on the windmill too hard it would have collapsed!” Propstra said.9

Propstra hired Paula March as the Development Director and a fundraising campaign began. They prepared a presentation for the Gordan and Betty Moore Foundation, but halfway through Propstra’s portion of the presentation, Moore stopped him and said “We don’t fund brick and mortar projects.” Thinking quickly, Propstra responded with, “It is not just brick and mortar! The windmills are educational and historic!” and told Moore that the campaign wanted to teach local children how wind energy transformed the city and built the park. Propstra’s passion was contagious and the Moore Foundation gave half a million dollars to the project.

During the restoration, Propstra proposed that the dome of Murphy windmill be taken to Holland to have a Dutch restoration company do the work. Lucas Verbij, owner of Verbij Hoogmade BV in Hoogmade, Netherlands, agreed to take the job after a 1995 visit to see the windmill. Crews removed the dome and antique machinery in 2002, to be shipped overseas. Propstra brought his three children to the Netherlands to see the progression of the restoration. When the 2008 recession hit, Propstra had to leave the project, but his initial enthusiasm and hard work were the catalyst for Murphy windmill’s eventual restoration in 2011.

The Golden Gate Park windmills may have powered the irrigation system that made the park a reality, but had it not been for the people who dedicated their time and love to the windmills, they would not be standing today.

1. “Romance Buds Beside S.F. Historic Park Windmills,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 3, 1929.

2. “Bossing a Dutch Windmill Heliodor Hammerstrom’s Job,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 11, 1920.

3. “Lakeview In On Frisco Romance,” Lake County Examiner, January 9, 1913.

4. “Park Scene of Daring Stunt,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 22, 1921.

5. David Lewis Hammarstrom, email message to author, January 7, 2023.

6. “Energy Plea For Park Windmills,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 28, 1973.

7. “Rossi’s Eleanor Tilts at City Hall,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 15, 1970.

8. “Energy Plea For Park Windmills,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 28, 1973.

9. Don Propstra, interview by Lindsey Hanson, August 16, 2022.